CHAP. XLII. .ROSA'CE^. TJO'SA. 793 



it; but in later times we find it mentioned among the ancient rights of ma- 

 nors, that their owners were empowered to levy a tax, or tribute, on their 

 tenants, of so many bushels of roses, which were used, not only for making 

 rose-water, but for covering the tables with, instead of napkins. The French 

 parliament had formerly a day of ceremony, called Baillee de Roses, because 

 great quantities of roses were then distributed. Shakspeare, who, no doubt, 

 followed some old legend or chronicle, derives the assumption of the red and 

 the white roses, by the rival houses of York and Lancaster, from a quarrel in 

 the Temple (Jardens, between Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, and the 

 Earl of Somerset, the partisan of Henry of Lancaster. Finding that their 

 voices were getting too loud, Plantagenet proposes that they shall 



" In dumb significance proclaim their thoughts ;" 



adding, 



" Let him who is a true-born gentleman, 

 And stands upon the honour of his birth, 

 If he supposes I have pleaded truth, 

 From off this briar pluck a white rose with me." 



To which Somerset replies, 



" Let him who is no coward, nor no flatterer, 

 But dare maintain the party of the truth, 

 Pluck a red rose from oft' this thorn with me." 



Their respective followers gathered the different coloured roses ; and hence, 

 tradition says, these flowers were adopted as the badges of the houses of York 

 and Lancaster, during the civil wars which afterwards desolated the country 

 for more than thirty years. The Rosa alba is said to have been the one 

 chosen as the badge of the House of York, and the Rosa gallica as that of 

 Lancaster. The York and Lancaster rose, which, when it comes true, has 

 one half of the flower red, and the other half white, was named in commemo- 

 ration of the union of the two houses, by the marriage of Henry VII. of Lan- 

 caster with Elizabeth of York. It has been observed, that the roses on seals, 

 &c., always appear very double, and as if copied from the form of R. centi- 

 folia ; also, that the shoe ornament called a rosette has for its type a similar 

 kind of rose. The roses used in Gothic architecture, on the contrary, are 

 comparatively flat, with large open petals, like the R. gallica. 



Soil and Situation. The common wild roses will grow in very poor soil, 

 provided it be dry; but all the cultivated sorts require a soil naturally light 

 and free, and more or less enriched. The situation should be open and airy, 

 exposed to the east, or, in warm situations, to the north, rather than to the 

 south ; because the intensity of the sun's rays accelerates too rapidly the 

 expansion of the flowers, and also diminishes the colour and fragrance of the 

 petals. A rose-garden, fully exposed to the sun during the whole day, may 

 have a useful degree of shade given to it by the distribution of a few standard 

 roses of not less than 8 ft. or 10 ft. in height ; or by the introduction of 

 frames of wood or wire, in the forms of obelisks, gnomons, crosses, columns 

 surmounted by globes, or cones, on which climbing roses may be trained. 

 These, would produce no bad effect by their drip, and yet, by their shadow, 

 which would vary with the position of the sun, they would afford a salu- 

 tary protection to the dwarf roses by which they were surrounded ; and thus 

 effect, in some degree, the same object as a cool situation and exposure. The 

 rose is one of those plants that will not thrive in the neighbourhood of towns 

 where the prevailing fuel is pit-coal ; hence the roses grown within a circle 

 of ten miles of the metropolis are much inferior in beauty to those grown at 

 double that distance : for example, at Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, in 

 the rose nurseries of Mr. Hooker at Brenchley in Kent, and in those of Mr. 

 Woods at Maresfield in Sussex, and of Mr. Donald at Woking. The in- 

 fluence of the smoke of London on the roses grown in its neighbourhood is 

 every year extending its circle ; and roses which grow and flower very well in 

 gardens, in situations where building is only commencing, gradually lose their 

 vigour as the number of houses surrounding them is increased. The first 

 effect of the smoke is to prevent the flower buds from opening freely, and the 



